


A Mouth Made of Metal

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, DCU (Comics), Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Classism, Dark, F/M, Feudalism, Freeform AU, Gen, M/M, Magic, Obsessive Behavior, Slow Burn, World-Typical Ableism, World-Typical Misogyny, long fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-24 20:23:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2595296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Regent Carmine Falcone grants Ser James Gordon nobility for the capture of the King and Queen's murderer, Mario Pepper. But plots to murder the Regent and usurp the throne unveil with every step Jim takes further, and Darkness looms in the horizon. </p><p>[Warnings and tags subject to change. New pairings to come.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing this because there's never any good Game of Thrones AUs for my OTPs, and it's upsetting. Then I started writing, and guess what I realized? Game of Thrones AUs are _hard_ , like near impossible to plot and make sense of (it took me a full day just to come up with the Houses, their regions, House words and sigils), and there are good reasons why nobody ever write them and why George R. R. Martin might die before the ASOIAF series is completed. I'm going to drive myself nuts as FOX Gotham goes on, trying to get characters to fit, so chances are, I'll be ignoring a shit load of TV canon and dipping into DC Comics canon for help.
> 
> Gotham is the primary fandom of the fic, but the format for the world is heavily Game of Thrones. Story-wise, it's made up of a quarter of each, and half of my own bull crap. 
> 
> There will be all sorts of pairings, most of which are secondary or for plot's sake, but the Gobblepot relationship is the main one behind the wheel. It also unfolds really fucking slow, and will probably be unsatisfying if you're in this for the romance and not the story.

_**PROLOGUE** _

“Are you frightened?” asked Nyssa.

“No,” replied Dusan.

They stood side by side beyond the entrance to the Great Sept, looking in to Lord Ra's al Ghul, who knelt in front of his wife Lady Melisande's spread legs. He was not touching her, not even looking at her. He was staring up at the statue of the Daemon God, arms reaching for the Heavens, and muttering enchantments beneath his breath.

“Are _you_ frightened, Sister?” asked Dusan, his blood red eyes darting a glance at her. Such pretty red eyes, fitting for the child of a demon. Yet, he was white everywhere else, and she was glad for it. The Heavens had blessed Nyssa when they cursed her brother.

Dusan heard her hesitation.

“No.”

“I would not blame you. I have nothing to lose, but you. You have much to lose. The favor of our father, the seat of the House, your home... It will all go to that woman's child.” He gestured to the poor Melisande screaming the Heavens down.

Midwives rushed like panicked ducks to tend to the Lady, who had begun flailing like a wild thing. She was bleeding a river from her widening hole, and it did not look as if she was going to survive. The babe would kill her if it lived-the prophesied one, the Darkness that would come. A fortnight ago, Nyssa would've prayed for it to end the insufferable woman. Now, she prayed her father's wife crush that thing between her legs before it could breathe the night air.

“Darkness falls,” Nyssa muttered their House words absentmindedly, and perhaps she let some bitterness slip through when she did.

“Darkness falls,” Dusan agreed. “'Darkness falls when Daemon rises. Darkness falls comes the Great Beast of Black. Darkness falls from red blood spilt. Darkness falls by the will of Death.'”

“I don't need you to rub salt in my wounds, Brother,” she spat.

“Do not deny me the chance to use my salt, Sister, when you rarely let me see your wounds,” he said back.

Their lord father's chanting grew louder. One midwife tried to ease the Lady's pain by giving her a cloth to bite on, but another denied Melisande that relief instantly. Nyssa watched, conflicted between satisfaction and uneasiness as the woman bit on her own tongue, halving it with her teeth. The once-beautiful Melisande's mouth foamed disgustingly with blood and spit. Even if she lived, Ra's al Ghul would find her no desire to bed. She would be cast aside, like his first wife, Dusan's mother. Just as Nyssa's own mother, never a wife to him, only a pawn.

The head emerged first, red with blood, and black with a slight of hair. Nyssa watched. The spawn fascinated her.

“It's...small,” she said.

“It's a babe, of course it's small,” said Duran.

“It's hardly a Great Beast of Black. It's a beast, but not great and not black enough. Perhaps we've mistaken,” she said.

“Did you sound hopeful?” he asked.

“Did you sound _stupid_ , you whiteling,” she snarled.

“Calm, Nyssa. Father is never wrong,” Duran assured.

“He is now. That thing is no Great Beast. It'll bring as much darkness to the realm as you would. Look at it, it's weak, its mother soon to be dead, and-” Then Nyssa stopped, for their lord father was staring right at her. “...Father,” she greeted with a bow as he passed them.

They hurried after him.

“The ritual is not done, Father,” Duran said.

“Have we mistaken? Is it not tonight, not the child?” Nyssa asked, then flushed scarlet at the icy look Ra's al Ghul shot her. She had not meant to sound as pleased as she did.

“The Darkness is to fall tonight, you can count on that,” Ra's told them. “Ritual or not, my newest born is to bring it.”

“The Daemons are true,” said his son.

Nyssa said nothing. They entered the council chamber, where the Nameless Maester and Lord al Ghul's Seven Men of Death waited. His children took their places, his daughter to his left, his son a corner towards the end.

“What news?” Ra's asked.

“A raven,” said the Nameless Maester. “From our Whisperers beyond the rivers. The King Thomas and Queen Martha have been murdered while a hunting trip, by a lowborn in the Kingswoods,” said the Nameless Maester. “A Ser James Gordon of the court deciphered the nature of the kills.”

“And what of it?” asked Nyssa. “Their son may not be but ten. They'll appoint regency, perhaps from the Queen's maiden house, or the Hand Carmine Falcone, with half the houses in the realm at his beckoning should he call for banners.”

“The Whisperers told me there were plots involved,” continued the Maester. “Their deaths were deliberate, of a higher intention.”

And came a thoughtful pause.

“If Gotham wish to tear itself apart, I say we wait until they do,” she said.

“'Darkness falls from red blood split.' They'll bleed like Melisande's cunt. In time, they'll be ripe for conquest,” said Duran.

“Show some respect for your dying mother,” Ra's snapped.

Duran only smiled. My mother is long dead, his smile said, clearly as the bright days The League never saw. Sometimes, Nyssa envied her brother's boldness. Other times, she reminded herself that it was she, a bastard daughter, that Ra's chose as heir-apparent over a true-born son, and used that to taunt Duran whenever the chance passes.

“We will have no war with Gotham,” the lord declared. “Darkness will fall when Darkness falls. We will play our part when the time comes.”

"Father-" Nyssa began, but there came a knocking on the door. Ra's bid the comer to enter, and in came the head of the midwives with a bundle in her arms.

“It is a daughter, My Lord,” said the midwife.

“And what of my wife?”

“She did not live.”

Ra's nodded. “Very well. Take her away.”

The midwife obeyed.

A moment later, Ra's dismissed the council. Nyssa left last. She did not wish to be followed, visiting Melisande's corpse in the Sept.

Melisande was still there when she arrived. Her slender legs slumped in odd positions on the floor, where her blood had seeped through the cracks. Her night-black hair clung to her face and neck. By her ear was the piece of tongue she had bitten off. Seeing this sorrowful sight, Nyssa almost pitied her. She had been used worse than a horse, nothing more than a sacrifice for her husband's spawn. She was a product of Ra's cruelty, and she made Nyssa shiver.

Nyssa left the midwives to attend to the dead body, only to find Duran waiting for her in the hall.

“Are you frightened now?” he asked her.

“Go away, I'm in no mood for you taunting,” she told him, walking past his person. “One more word out of you and-”

“What?” He was challenging her. ”What shall you do, Nyssa? What shall you ever do? Now that Father intends to make that spawn his heir.”

Something within her snapped.

“I know that!” she screamed. “I know! You don't have to tell me, Duran! You don't need to mock me, or parade in front of me as a reminder that I might become like _you_! I don't want to hear how happy it makes you that I'll be dragged down to your station!”

“Sister, you aren't being dragged down to my station,” said Duran quietly, so calm that she couldn't help but stop and listen to the coming words. “I have wits, patience, and a claim to legitimacy you'll never have. No, you will go lower.”

He had slapped her in the face without raising a hand, and all she could do was stand in her place as he left her.

This could not be.

This should not be, and she would not let it.

The rage kept her strangely calm. She felt it like coldness beneath her skin as she walked away, down the halls the opposite Duran, reliving their conversation. Duran was content with being second. He would be even more content if she was third. And a child was going to take her place, her hard-earned place as heir. All because of what? That her mother was never truly Lady al Ghul the way Melisande was, like Duran's mother was? Was a ceremony really the difference when their father fucked them all just the same?

She found herself in front of the babe's room.

A wet nurse was tending to the child. Her breasts were rosy and swollen with milk, leaking out one free teat while the spawn drank from the other. The nurse looked up when Nyssa entered.

“My Lady,” she bowed her head, but remained in her chair. “Forgive me, I was not expecting you.”

“Curtsy me properly,” Nyssa ordered.

“Forgive me, My Lady, I cannot-”

“Curtsy me properly!” she demanded.

Flustered, the wet nurse struggled her breast from the spawn and lay her down.

“Leave!” Nyssa ordered before she could curtsy.

“But-”

“Leave, now!” she shouted. “I want to see my sister.”

The nurse left.

In the crib, the child cried restlessly without her milk. Nyssa approached her like she was a poisonous frog, slow and cautious. The child spotted her and ceased her tears instantly. Her pupils were dark behind her slits-for-eyes. It was as if she knew she could not sway her.

“You...” Nyssa whispered. “You're no Darkness to come.”

She drew her knife.

“You're no heir to the Daemon.”

She held her knife high, ready to plunge.

An arrow shot through her heart. Then another before she even reeled. She gasped for air and choked on her own blood.

She turned around and saw Duran and her father by the doorway. Ra's face was solemn. Duran had his little mocking smile, having just pulled the arch on her himself. She mouthed 'no.' She wanted to scream, but nothing came out but blood.

“You disappoint me, Nyssa,” said Ra's.

The knife fell from Nyssa's hand, and she fell to her knees, to her death, and to the darkness.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted originally thinking I was going to partly follow the Game of Thrones TV show format, and have ten chapters per installment, like one of their ten-episode seasons. But the more I thought about it the more I changed my mind, so I'm just going to stick with how it's done in the ASOIAF books. One POV per chapter. And I'll update as often as possible, otherwise I'll never get this project done.

_**CARMINE** _

The first light of day broke through the mountains in the East, followed by the songs of the birds. Lord Falcone woke from his sleep when the ray from the dawn brushed across his face, like his mother's soft hands untainted by the wrinkles of time. He sat up tiredly, vigor for a man of fifties, feeble for the Hand of the King.

Former Hand, he corrected himself. Now Lord Regent to young Prince Bruce of House Wayne, Protector of Gotham and the Rivers Beyond. His tasks had grown threefold over the fortnight. He had a kingdom to run, a ward to advise, and a murderer to execute in the late morning.

But first, he must feed his birds.

Carmine grabbed a handful of milo seeds from the pouch on top of his drawer and headed for the window where a mother sparrow had made her nest two month ago. She had come to the Tower of the Hand, built her home and laid her children. She died days after by the claws and beak of a Grey Falcon. Carmine had watched her body being ripped apart midair. Then the bird of prey then flew past overhead several times before perching on the pole where House Falcone's flag hung, fluttering proudly in the wind in all its blue, white, and grey, and there the bird came to perch every day until the eggs began the crack. When the chicklings hatched, Carmine ordered the falcon to be shot down—a disrespect to the sigil of his House surely, but what were a symbol to lives?

His five chicklings chirped eagerly and hopped around the wood nest as he sprinkled the milo seeds down, hungry, yet happy. The lone male chick pecked at his fingers until they bled. His sisters, three light and one dark, filled themselves with the fallen seeds around him. Carmine chuckled at how much they reminded him of his own children.

The two littlest females had begun peering at the world outside their nest, shuffling to the edge of the sticks, ruffling the feather of their wings. Once or twice, Carmine reached over and placed them back in the center.

“There are terrible things in this world you're not ready to face, little ones,” he muttered to them, only to hear defiant chirping back.

Their dark elder sister sat stilly in her place, as if contempt of her younger female nest mates, and resentful of her older brother, who continuously pecked at Carmine's hand despite the absence of milo seeds. “Enough, that's enough.” He took his hand away and rubbed the droplets of blood on a handkerchief.

The steward knocked on his door.

“Enter,” he answered, and the lad arrived with a breakfast of bacon, ham, bread, apple, and a glass of milk.

He ate his fill, a good three-quarters of the food, before sending the boy away. Age and duty had robbed him of the appetite he once possessed in youth.

He washed, dressed, and put on his armor and cloak. The sun had announced the day by the time he was done, and an audience had already gathered by the King's Gallows. Now more suitably the Regent's Gallows, for he was no king.

He was in the chair above the gallows before he could remember how. The fine Oakwood felt heavy under his fingers, trapping, which was silly; he and Thomas had shared this chair equally as judges of executions.

The audience gathered was the largest in ten years. The lords and ladies of the noble Houses lined either sides of him. Those who could not make it sent envoys—sons and bastard sons, younger brothers or cousins—to bear the sigils in their places. Carmine noted that all but one of the Wardens were in attendance. Lady Fiscilla Mooney, Warden of the West, wore a gown of peacock feathers, and stood out among other women like a lioness amid a pack of hens. Her ward, the Kapelput bastard, shaded her with a tent-like contraption. His son, Alberto, who held the South, sat beneath the shades of a tree. From the North, beneath the red-and-blue flag, bearing the white bear's paw sigil of House Essen, was Lady Sarah with her Maidenguards. Ser Franklin Carbone came in place of Lord Sal Maroni, Warden of the East.

Among the others, Lord Kean of the Fire Isles and his daughter Barbara, Lady Renee of House Montoya, Lord Jacob of House Kane, House Drake, House Bertinelli, House Blackfire, House Elliot... And past them, armored with a gold cloak and surrounded by his fellow knights, vigilantly stood the hero of the hour, Ser James Gordon of the City Watch.

Carmine looked again, and caught no glimpse of Prince Bruce.

He sighed. They could wait no longer.

“Bring out the prisoner,” he commanded.

Mario Pepper emerged from the dungeon a minute later, and the people of Gotham rouse with hate for the King-killer. Rotten eggs, rotten fruits, and rotten meats sailed through the air, mixed with cries like “For Queen Martha!” “Hang the King-killer!” and “Justice for the Prince! Justice!” Some hit him, most didn't. The executioners brought him up and wrapped a thick, knotted rope around his neck.

He was a large brute of a man, a wife-beater and a child-raper, his neighbors all told. The torturers reported that he cried for his mother when they whipped him, cursing gods and invoking daemons as if they could save him. Until the last night, he pled innocent to the killings, and begged for mercy like a starved dog for bones. Yet, in his final hour, he stood as silent as a man who had accepted his fate.

“Mario Pepper of the Slum's End,” Carmine began, and the people fell silent. “You are charged and found guilty on the accounts of the murders of King Thomas and Queen Martha, and thereby treason against Gotham and the throne. In the name of Bruce of House Wayne, Prince and Heir to the throne, and by my power as Lord Regent, I sentence you to die.” He paused. “What are your last words?”

Pepper looked up at him, and Carmine saw anger and hate.

“May the Gods piss on the throne!” Pepper spat.

The crowd went hysteric. The people riled up in outrage, hands outreaching as if trying to tear apart his body. Several of the gold cloaks ran forward to hold them back. Carmine quickly gave the signal to hang. The executioners pushed Pepper off the stand, and the rope squeezed the life out of the man.

Carmine waited until Pepper died. Then he got up to leave the chaos to the gold cloaks, but not before instructing a steward to send for Ser Gordon.

The court succeeding the execution was one of solemn silence. Some, like House Bertinelli and House Drake, did not stay. Carmine was long past caring when he ascended the throne and sat. The mere act send frights through his bones. The throne felt cold beneath his touch.

He caught Fiscilla's incisive stare, but she seemed to be looking past him. At what, he could only ponder. Fish, her mother had called her for her penetrating, unblinking gazes.

The court parted a way for Gordon, golden hair, brown eyes, and a face of honesty. And the honesty betrayed his nervousness when he bent a knee and knelt.

“You have done well, to have brought the King and Queen's murderer to justice, Ser James,” Carmine told him. “You did a great honor to Gotham and the throne.”

“Thank you, My Lord,” said Gordon.

“Great honor comes great reward,” he continued. “The throne is generous.”

“If I may name my own reward, My Lord,” pleaded Gordon.

“Speak.”

“I entreat you, grant me a title of nobility, a piece of good land, and a seat from which a House Gordon may rule,” said the knight.

The crowd of lords stirred, whispers traveled like wildfire. Carmine himself was none-too-pleased.

“You want to be a lord, Ser James,” he said.

“Yes,” Gordon answered.

“Will you take no other rewards? Gold? Silver?”

“If you would not grant me this, then I will happily live with the honor of having served my Prince.”

Carmine narrowed his eyes. He saw that the young man was stubborn, and could not be swayed by money. He saw the way James Gordon's eyes darted to Lady Barbara when he thought no one was looking. He saw the besotted, worried ways she stared back, and how Lord Kean's lips curled with distaste.

A fool then. A young fool in love, who believed that he could wed the daughter of one of the realm's greatest and most ancient Houses, if only he had a small plot of land and a title. If Gordon were wiser, he should know that proud House Kean would never let a daughter marry beneath her station, lands and titles, or naught.

Carmine opened his mouth to speak, preparing a final persuasion.

“Give it to him.”

The crowd stirred once more. All glanced up left, towards the balcony where little Prince Bruce stood, and gave the bows, the curtsies, and the mutters of greetings and good intents. Carmine was surprised for a second time that day. The Prince was dressed and out of his room after a week of self-confinement.

“Give him land and the title, and I'll send with him works-men to build him the castle.” Then to Gordon. “Tell me, where do you have mind?” asked Bruce.

Gordon was agape. “Pardon me, My Prince?”

“What land?”

“I...I did not consider-”

“My Prince,” Carmine interrupted. “We cannot grant Ser James his land, and we cannot grant him a title when it'll be an empty one. Not only would this set a bad precedent, but no lord in this court will be willing to carve out a piece of his rightful property just to reward-”

“Reward whom? The man who brought my parents' murderer to justice?” Bruce's voice silenced the court. Carmine had no expected this level of fierceness from the little boy who mindlessly played swords with the stable boys only a month ago. He'd either grown, or was mad with grief.

“My Prince-”

“Then grant him Commershire,” said Bruce.

Another wave of whispers rippled through the crowd. Carmine decided that it was madness.

“I cannot! That is the domain of House Wayne, and the seat of your heir. It is not mine to grant,” he answered.

“I'm confined here, and I don't have an heir,” Prince Bruce snapped. “Grant him Commershire, or I'll go down there and do it myself!”

The Prince left him no choice.

Resigned, he turned to Gordon, who knelt still, but no doubt overwhelmed by his sudden change of good fortune. Gods know everyone else was. Still, it was better to comply with the boy's wish than risk a petty banter in front of the whole court with a child. It would very well makes no difference whether James Gordon lorded the land or not, in the long future, should he prove incompetent to run it.

Carmine sighed deeply.

“By the decree of Bruce of House Wayne, Prince and Heir to the throne,” he announced. “Ser James shall henceforth be known as Lord James of House Gordon, and to him shall go all the lands, rights, and income formerly of House Wayne of Commershire. As Regent, I consent.” Pause. “Do you accept this, Lord James?”

“I am honored to.”

“Good. You knelt a knight, now rise a lord.”

Gordon rose, almost reeling with shock. The court hardly believed what had happened either. By the interference of a maddened boy, a lowly knight was given the largest province in the Northeast and made one of the wealthiest man in Gotham.

And yet, the lad could only think to look to Lady Barbara, whose blue eyes shone like sapphires upon water. Next to her, her father Lord Kean was as bright red as the fiery beard he once grew.

Gordon broke their gaze and looked to Carmine again. He bowed.

“My Lord, as Commershire is of the North, but undeclared as a province of the royal family, I would like to formally declare my allegiance for Sarah of House Essen, Lady of Guevara and Warden of the North, in the names of the Regent, the king, and all the gods as witnesses.”

He turned and knelt to Lady Sarah, who eyed him inquisitively, pleasantly surprised.

Carmine gave a short pause. It was extremely smart and stupid of the man at the same time, he thought, for Commershire lay in the Northeast, some argued more east than north, and Lord Maroni would be just as displeased to hear Gordon's allegiance as Lady Essen was pleased. But that was for the naive lad to deal with, and none of his concern right now.

“Your answer, Lady Essen?” asked the Lord Regent.

“I accept,” she answered.

“Then it is done.”

Carmine glanced up at the left of the balcony, and saw that the Prince had departed.

Exhausted, he dismissed the court.

Out the corner of his eyes, he saw Fish's expression growing dark. By her side, the Kapelput bastard stared at Gordon, smiling.

 


End file.
